Marisa retweeted
✍️SNP energy spokesperson Graham Leadbitter MP has written to request a correction from the Prime Minister after he falsely told MPs that he had committed £1bil of investment to offshore wind in Scotland, when the they had in fact given money to projects off the coast of Norfolk.
Marisa retweeted
SNP praised as 38% fewer wait for key diagnostic tests than in NHS England talkingupscotlandtwo.com/202…
Marisa retweeted
Can't have a recycling scheme because it would be different from Englands. Vetoed.
Can't have a say on whether Jackdaw or Rosebank should be developed. Energy reserved to London
Can't stop pylons taking energy to England. Energy reserved to London.
Can't stop more rip offs. Why?
Marisa retweeted
The First Minister of Scotland has responded to the Tories ghoulishly attempting to politicise Remembrance Sunday.
Marisa retweeted
I think this is the most concise, clear and accurate articulation of what gender is that Iv ever heard.
Marisa retweeted
A lot of us were very willing to have a debate without heat, @stonewalluk, and the reason that never happened wasn't because gender critical feminists didn't want one.
While we were trying to get you to listen to our concerns, your former CEO was telling a BBC boss that gay people not wanting to include the opposite sex in their dating pool was 'sexual racism'. While we were pointing out the homophobia inherent in gender ideology, Stonewall ambassador Alex Drummond (a bearded, heterosexual man who'd had no surgery and taken no cross-sex hormones but liked wearing skirts), was going into schools to talk to students about his 'lesbian' identity. @BluskyeAllison, who actually is a lesbian, was subject to unlawful discrimination at her place of work for tweeting: ‘Stonewall recently hired Morgan Page, a male bodied person who ran workshops with the sole aim of coaching heterosexual men who identify as lesbians on how they can coerce young lesbians into having sex with them. Page called [it] “overcoming the cotton ceiling”.’
When the UK Supreme Court upheld women's right to single sex spaces, you issued a statement expressing your unhappiness about the ruling. In her report on your unhappy influence at the University of Essex, you were found by barrister @akuareindorf to have misrepresented the law as it related to women's rights: '[Stonewall have] stated the law as Stonewall would prefer it to be, rather than the law as it is’.
In 2018, you publicly advised schools to shred a research pack saying there were risks to puberty blockers, in spite of the fact that you aren't a medical charity and that there was already credible evidence that puberty blockers are neither irreversible nor harm-free. Meanwhile you produced your own educational packs, recommending a children's book, for ages 5-9, in which the parent 'is neither a man, nor a woman – they’re non-binary.' In July 2022, Stonewall sent out a tweet that read ‘Research suggests that children as young as two recognise their trans identity'.
@thetimes has reported how you've sought to control the language used by NHS trusts and government on their social-media accounts. Organisations would get points from you for replacing commonly understood words with ideologically approved terms, eg, 'birthing parent' instead of 'mother'. thetimes.com/uk/society/arti…
In short, you took a maximalist position on gender identity ideology, which you attempted to enforce by diktat. You refused to acknowledge that you'd hitched your wagon to a cause that, unlike civil rights, gay rights or women's rights, sought to strip rights from others. You sought to curtail everyone's right to freedom of speech and belief by controlling what it was permissible to think and say, through the management and political class. You have argued against women's and girl's rights to their own spaces, their sports and to assemble without men. Your former CEO tried to shame gay women/men into dating the opposite sex if the latter claimed to be female/male.
Your mantra was 'no debate' because, like all totalitarians, you preferred slogans, bullying and infiltration of powerful institutions to talking to opponents. You appear to have had no concern for the lowly people your ideology was harming: gender confused kids, female rape victims, female prisoners, regular people hounded and investigated at their places of work for refusing to accept the new mandates on sex and gender issued from on high.
Your 'activism' has been a disaster for those trans-identified people who really do just want to get on with their lives in peace. You have besmirched the name of an organisation many of us were once proud to donate to, the charity that was partly responsible for securing the legal right of gay people to marry, which a lot of us thought would never happen in our lifetimes. The milquetoast words quoted below do not erase a decade of gender activism that has been disastrous not only for individuals but for society as a whole.
There was once a debate to be had, but until you acknowledge the direct harm you've caused, it is no more possible to debate you than to persuade a person in the throes of a drug-induced psychosis that they are not, in fact, the reincarnated Christ.
Marisa retweeted
This was all discussed at yesterday's Full Council meeting in Glasgow. But you probably won't read about that. We're in a strange situation where there is a big media & political debate about decentralisation focused on Glasgow where the only voice that is missing is Glasgow's.
Marisa retweeted
While investment in the SEC announced in the UK budget is welcome, Glasgow did not receive funding on a comparable basis to English cities & regions (nor did other cities/regions). He talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk. Yet the press are all likely to run his lines.
Marisa retweeted
Wee thread on this. John Swinney made commitments on devolving further powers to Glasgow City Region *last year*. It's a long standing conversation. But Andy Burnham has not had a similar conversation with Glasgow. He hasn't had any conversation so far.
Watch as Andy Burnham calls for more powers to be devolved to Scottish cities after a meeting with John Swinney
The Prime Minister spoke to reporters in Glasgow on Friday after talks with the First Minister at a meeting of the National Economic Council, saying he and Swinney had found 'a lot of common ground'
Marisa retweeted
I didn’t really get the problem with gender ideology at first.
I’m liberal-minded about most things. ‘Live and let live’ has generally been my motto. I believed in inclusion, kindness and not causing unnecessary offence.
I knew some adults chose medical treatments or surgery to resemble the opposite sex. That seemed to me a matter of personal autonomy. Adults can do what they wish with their own bodies.
What I hadn’t realised — and I feel slightly embarrassed admitting this — was that I’d misunderstood what was being claimed.
I thought “transgender” meant a form of self-expression. A man who liked wearing women’s clothes. Someone changing their name. Gender non-conformity.
What I hadn’t grasped was that some activists weren’t just asking for tolerance. They were asserting that declaring yourself the opposite sex made you the opposite sex. Not metaphorically. Literally.
And that this wasn’t just cultural. It had legal consequences.
It meant men who said they were women were demanding access to women’s sports, prisons, domestic violence shelters and hospital wards.
It meant the rewriting of healthcare language — “pregnant people”, “bodies with cervixes” — to avoid saying “women”.
It meant children struggling with identity being affirmed onto medical pathways with lifelong implications.
And also redefining same-sex attraction. Lesbians called ‘bigoted’ for not wanting relationships with men who identify as women. Gay men accused of prejudice for saying they’re not attracted to female bodies.
I’d also overlooked how deeply this had spread into public institutions, schools and workplaces.
And how easily disagreement was framed as cruelty. Speaking up felt risky — because others were being publicly humiliated for doing so.
None of this is abstract.
Because sex is the basis on which safeguarding works. On which data is collected. On which cancer screening programmes run. On which fair sport and single-sex spaces depend. It’s written into law — including the Equality Act — because material differences matter.
If sex becomes a ‘feeling’ rather than a biological category, those protections become unstable.
And once reality becomes negotiable, everything does.
Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.
But I needed to be sure.
So I read. Books, research papers, policy documents. When I finally spoke publicly, there was backlash from all directions.
Many women thanked me, while some feminists criticised me for speaking too late.
Others were angry about a past interview I’d done with the parent of a transgender person, accusing me of promoting harm.
It takes courage to speak when you know your reputation, friendships or livelihood may be on the line — when you know raising your voice could strain, or even end, relationships you value.
Once I understood what was at stake, staying silent was no longer an option.
I lost my livelihood simply for saying I didn’t like the phrase “pregnant people”. That alone tells you something is deeply wrong.
It shouldn’t be this way.
I don’t expect praise for admitting it took me far too long to understand what was happening. Or to say so publicly.
I can only be honest about what I believed then and what I understand now.
But it does take courage to admit publicly that you got something wrong. All I hope is that by acknowledging I wasn’t paying enough attention, another woman (or man) might feel emboldened to do the same.
Because, as many of us know first-hand, there can be professional, social and financial consequences to speaking out.
And I won’t pretend I understood something before I did, simply to make myself more acceptable to those who got there sooner.
Which is why I will never judge another woman for how long it takes her to find her voice.
Because every voice matters. Whenever it is raised.
Marisa retweeted
...my sofa but the one things he is, is a good caretaker first minister and stabilising force when it comes to one of the most turbulent times in recent economic history. On that basis I give him a break. Might sound like a backhanded compliment (and it is) but the point stands..
Marisa retweeted
I don't particularly like John Swinney as a politician. What I will give him his dues on is that when it comes to running the Scottish budget and mitigating the damage Westminster causes, he's bloody good with the numbers. It's his wheelhouse. He might be more Biege than...
Marisa retweeted
These are the means of livelihood for families, so if they're destroyed, the families will find it difficult or impossible to survive. But it's not a genocidal act. Apparently. Ahem.
Marisa retweeted
When Scotland decided to roll out free care services, it did so from Scotland's fixed, devolved budget.
When England decides to roll out free care services, in England only, it does so by reducing the future pensions of all nations.
Pooling and sharing only ever goes one way...
Marisa retweeted
Yesterday it was Lisa Nandy telling us that the Brexit vote was never intended to be a settled question. Tonight we have PM telling us reopening the Q is justified because it’s been 10 years & opinions & circumstances have changed. 🤔 Do they hear themselves?
Marisa retweeted
‘Seismic’ Andy Burnham proposals are quite familiar for Scots. Right to buy abolished here 2016, free personal care 2001, comprehensives never axed, 62% Remain vote, water never privatised, PR standard. So what do Scots make of the PM’s big speech? Listen LesleyRiddoch.com/podcast
Marisa retweeted
In Scotland personal care has been free for 24 years. It has not impacted the state pension but taxes are a little higher here for the better paid. Now, Westminster will restrict pension growth in Scotland to help pay for personal care in England.
You Yes yet?
@theSNP
